The present disclosure relates to an imaging apparatus that captures an image of a sample for each imaging area and obtains a high magnification image, an imaging control program, and an imaging method.
Some imaging apparatuses that capture a high magnification image of a sample by using a microscope can obtain a high magnification image of a sample by capturing a high magnification image for each partial area of the sample (imaging area) and combining the images thus obtained. For example, there has been known a DPI scanner or a DPI viewer in which an image of a cellular tissue is captured through a microscope and the image is stored as digital image data to be used for pathological diagnosis or the like.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 2012-014013 (paragraph 0090 and FIG. 5) discloses “a microscope control apparatus” that forms a high magnification image in the whole imaging range by dividing the imaging range that includes a sample into a plurality of imaging areas, capturing a high magnification image for each of the imaging areas, and combining the high magnification images for the imaging areas with each other. When capturing a high magnification image for each of the imaging areas, the microscope control apparatus searches for an in-focus position of each of the imaging areas by using an autofocus function.